Injection molded rhenium fluidic valves

Rhenium has extraordinary high temperature properties, and is the only material suitable for the fabrication of solid divert motor hot gas valves. It is the strongest ductile material known at 2000¿C and totally impervious to hydrogen and the combustionproducts of most solid propellants to 2500¿C. But rhenium has been little used because of its high density and high cost. Many applications exist where the density is not important, but few exist where the improved performance is worth the cost. The costof rhenium components is composed of two elements: the cost of the raw material and the cost of the fabrication. A rule-of-thumb in determining the cost of a rhenium component is: 80% of the total cost is fabrication. Another rule-of-thumb is: 75% of thevalue of the starting raw material will be thrown away. These are true for all current rhenium fabrication processes. In addition, there is no current production route that significantly decreases the first article cost. In Phase I Powdermet demonstrated aproduction-suitable rhenium manufacturing technology that uses 50% less raw material and reduces the production processing costs by 50-80%. Applied to the NTW system SDACS, this manufacturing process could reduce the production cost by 50% or more. InPhase II Powdermet will optimize the processing and turn it into a qualified manufacturing process for SDACS and other military and commercial rhenium components.